this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
12 points (92.9% liked)
Dungeons and Dragons
11061 readers
52 users here now
A community for discussion of all things Dungeons and Dragons! This is the catch all community for anything relating to Dungeons and Dragons, though we encourage you to see out our Networked Communities listed below!
/c/DnD Network Communities
- Dungeons and Dragons - Art
- DM Academy
- Dungeons and Dragons - Homebrew
- Dungeons and Dragons - Memes and Comics
- Dungeons and Dragons - AI
- Dungeons and Dragons - Looking for Group
Other DnD and related Communities to follow*
- Tabletop Miniatures
- RPG @lemmy.ml
- TTRPGs @lemmy.blahaj.zone
- Battlemaps
- Map Making
- Fantasy e.g. books stories, etc.
- Worldbuilding @ lemmy.world
- Worldbuilding @ lemmy.ml
- OSR
- OSR @lemm.ee
- Clacksmith
- RPG greentext
- Tyranny of Dragons
- DnD @lemmy.ca
- DnD [email protected]
DnD/RPG Podcasts
*Please Follow the rules of these individual communities, not all of them are strictly DnD related, but may be of interest to DnD Fans
Rules (Subject to Change)
- Be a Decent Human Being
- Credit OC content (self or otherwise)
- Posting news articles: include the source name and exact title from article
Format: [Source Name] Article Title
- Posts must have something to do with Dungeons and Dragons
- No Piracy, this includes links to torrent sites, hosted content, streaming content, etc. Please see this post for details
- Zero tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Ableism/etc.
- No NSFW content
- Abide by the rules of lemmy.world
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
So this is the question I tend to ask, if nothing else to learn something about your tool. Why should it use it over more established competitors? I am specifically thinking something like Roll20 and FoundryVTT, the former being easily accessible and free with SRD content at your fingertips, and Foundry just being, well, Foundry. Hell even Owlbear Rodeo for a generic and easily accessible tabletop. For campaign management text programs like Notion.so and full on world managers like World Anvil are providing massively powerful tools too.
What it is Dungeon Maker provides that is either missing from these other options and is so useful that losing out on all the other stuff in them is worth the switch, or what does Dungeon Maker do so much better than the others that it is worth switching?
Not trying to be a jerk about it, it looks like you have a solid base, just curious about your ideas on these things.
Of course, I made Dungeon maker because I found being a player on Roll20 was a pretty lackluster experience (and not entirely free, my DM friend spent a lot of money on it). I can't speak to how exactly it compares to other alternatives as I haven't used many, so I can just talk about what it does do and let you decide if it sounds good.
Dungeon Maker comes with an intuitive tile based map editor for making encounters, including random map generators that can give you a starting point for your maps. It automatically creates barriers to movement and vision with placed objects and walls so you don't have to worry about that. It supports multi-story maps, allowing you to go vertical with your design, whether that be ,multiple stories to buildings, or perhaps cliff faces. There's also built in note tools you can use to place notes anywhere on your maps, teleporters that will instantly move players and NPCs that step on them, hidden doors, toggleable lights, and more.
The built in asset editor lets you add custom art to the map, so you can change up the art style of the game, or just add custom objects.
The campaign map mode allows you to easily tie together your campaign maps into one place between encounters that your players can move freely around.
The lighting system lets you change the time of day on your maps during play, and the in game lighting will reflect that. You can toggle any light source on and off, allowing you to make fun and interesting scenarios for your players, such as stealth missions. The DM has the standard abilities to control enemies and NPCs, move players around, toggle door locks and open and close doors. They can also add enemies and NPCs to maps on the fly, so you can change up your encounters quickly and easily. There's also a built in battle tracker to handle turn order and initiative automatically.
There is an action and spell editor in the game that lets you create most damage and healing based spells in DnD. Spells are animated in the game, which adds some flair to your encounters, and lets everyone see exactly where they went off. There's also support for duration spells, and moving them around.
There is Steam Workshop support, so you can share your characters, NPCs, Enemies, Campaigns, Map Blueprints, and Custom Assets with other players.
Overall I've found it makes being a DM easy and fun, and my players have enjoyed using it. Hopefully it sounds good to you.
The map making and map exporting might be worth it for me, I'll defo wishlist it! One of the things I am noticing is that a lot of the features you got overlap with the software I already use (FoundryVTT) and between already having DungeonDraft and Dungeon Alchemist. It's a hard space to break in to and I do honestly wish you the best.
The Workshop support is interesting, though I am guessing from your description that so far, it won't come even close to rival the module support that something like Foundry has.
You price point is very good though. Could be a solid entry point for a lot of GMs that want to get off Roll20. Oh yeah one thing that is not super clear from the Steam page as well is, does only the GM need to purchase the software or do players need their own copy too?
It's definitely a crowded space, I'm hoping the combination of features lets me carve out a niche.
And everyone does need to purchase it, that's why I've kept the price point low.
I forgot to mention, the map maker also includes a map exporter, so if you want to use Dungeon maker to make map sheets to either print out maps or use them in other programs you absolutely can.